


Beyond the Veil

by EllaStorm



Series: Oath [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Binding Oaths, Mirror of Galadriel, Multi, Oaths & Vows, Temporary Character Death, Undying Love, so I guess this is a series now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaStorm/pseuds/EllaStorm
Summary: Boromir dies at Amon Hen, but his oath of allegiance to Aragorn is unbroken, binding him to life. He wakes in Caras Galadhon, on the eve of destruction, where Galadriel takes him to look in the Mirror and see the future of Gondor and the King he loves.





	Beyond the Veil

The pain was searing, yet cold. As if the very warmth of his body was being dragged from him at the tips of the black-feathered arrows in his chest; and when his strength finally left him completely and his knees buckled beneath him, bringing him to the ground, streaks blurring his vision, there was an odd mixture of shame and fear biling up in his throat. The harsh sounds of metal scraping on metal rang in his ears, distantly, and part of him understood that somebody was fighting the creature that had wounded him so. His teeth clenched, and he could no longer distinguish the pain the arrows in his side inflicted on him from the pain of his guilt. _I do not deserve your protection. I have betrayed my honour and my oath. Leave me here to die._

The clanging of weapons ended, suddenly, with the ugly noise of a sword cutting through flesh, and the dull impact of a heavy object on the ground; and for a second Boromir was overwhelmed by fear and anguish. _Let it not be one of them. Divine Creator, let them be alive._

Then somebody knelt down by his side, and despite the washed-out blur before Boromir’s eyes, he recognised the familiar silhouette. A sudden, overwhelming feeling of relief came over him, as Aragorn’s presence encompassed him. If he could only use these last moments to confess to him, maybe one day he would find peace beyond the veil.

“They took the little ones,” he said, with difficulty, and tried to sit up, but he was too weak, and the pain darkened his senses. Aragorn’s hand was touching his shoulder, keeping him back with soothing strength. “Hold still.”

Boromir found no anger when he looked, neither in the King’s words nor in his gaze, only concern; and he had the sinking, terrifying suspicion that Aragorn might not yet know of his betrayal.

“Frodo. Where is Frodo?” he asked.

“I let Frodo go,” came the answer; and Boromir had to tell him, even for the fear of Aragorn turning his back on him in these final moments, because there was hope for atonement in truth, and if Aragorn hated him for what he had done, at least Boromir would not die with a lie on his lips.

“…I tried to take the ring from him.”

Aragorn’s expression did not change, and Boromir realised that he had been wrong: Aragorn had known of Boromir’s weakness long before he had stretched his hand out for the ring today. Had maybe felt that same weakness in himself at some point. But Aragorn had not yielded to it. _A stronger man than you, you say? There is none._

“The ring is beyond our reach now.”

Boromir’s tortured lungs ached and his legs were numb, but he did his best to ignore it, centred his attention on Aragorn’s face above him, stained with blood and grim-looking but for the gentleness in his features. “Forgive me,” he said, remorse in his words. “I did not see it. I have failed you all.”

Aragorn looked at him, his expression soft and his voice softer still. “No, Boromir. You fought bravely. You have kept your honour.” His fingers started to examine the entry points of the arrows in Boromir’s armour with the trained proficiency of a ranger that had often healed when no other healer had been available. But healing was futile here and there was little time left now. Boromir felt the numbness spreading from his legs upwards at a fast pace: Darkness was threatening to overwhelm him, and there was still much he had to say.

He gripped Aragorn’s hands decisively, holding them still against him and there was something pained in Aragorn‘s eyes, when he looked back up at Boromir shaking his head. “Leave it.” Boromir’s breath was failing him now, but he managed to wring the bitter, necessary words from his throat. “The world of men will fall. And all will come to darkness – and my city to ruin.”

Aragorn’s fingers brushed Boromir’s cheek, fleetingly, while he spoke; and, like an answer, Boromir raised his own hand to Aragorn’s shoulder, leather gloves to elven cloak, clinging to him as he had done in Lórien, when there had been no barriers between them, no numbness, and no blood. Aragorn’s hand came back to return the grip and his eyes told Boromir that he had understood.

_Gondor needs a King. Gondor needs you._

There was determination in his eyes, mixing in with the pain and the shadow of tears rendering them bluer than Boromir had ever seen them. His voice almost broke when he spoke again, but there was no unsteadiness in it. “I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you: I will not let the White City fall, nor our people fail.”

Boromir felt as if Aragorn’s strength was bleeding through the layers between them. The darkness at the rims of his consciousness still contracted around him, a black circle drawing closer with every second, but it did not concern him any longer, for it seemed as if the weight of the world had been lifted from him.

“Our people,” he said, and something close to elation took hold of him. “ _Our people_.” Aragorn looked at him, grief in his eyes, when Boromir’s hand fell away from his shoulder, back to the ground. His fingers ached to feel the hilt of his sword one last time, and his gaze wandered to where it lay, just out of reach. But Aragorn had seen and bowed over to put the sword into Boromir’s numb-fingered grip, pressing the weapon firmly to his chest.

Boromir looked up at him once again, a last time, and hoped to convey all that he felt in his eyes, for there were few words left in him. He hoped Aragorn saw what he wanted to say, hoped he understood his gratefulness, his remorse, his pride and his love, most of all, love for a King he would never serve, never ride with for the white towers of Minas Tirith. The thought filled him with sadness.

“I would have followed you, my brother…my captain…,” he said, as the world grew dim around him, save for two slowly fading points of blue. “…my King.”

These were the last words of Boromir, Son of Denethor, before his life left him. He did not learn of the tears Aragorn shed for him afterwards, nor of the final kiss pressed to his cold lips and the hands stroking his face, nor of the soft words that named him _son of Gondor_ , that named him _beloved_ , for he could not hear them any more.

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

Beyond the veil the world was white and brilliant, like a summer’s day in the gardens of Minas Tirith. Boromir blinked, since he could hardly see through the sunlight in his eyes, and when he finally did, he spotted high arches above him, white, wooden and elegantly structured. _I have seen this before,_ he thought, briefly, before he noticed that he was lying on a soft bed of white linen, naked but for a thin, white shift. The sound of water reached his ears and birds were singing in the distance. He had no understanding of what this new world would hold for him, but relief was already streaming through his veins: He had not been thrust into darkness. He had not been damned beyond salvation.

When he moved he noticed a strange feeling in his left side. It was not exactly pain – more the memory of it, the feeling of month-old scars, and, becoming curious, he touched his chest with his hand, moved his fingers from his clavicle down to his lowest rib. He found three spots in which his skin felt slightly harder, almost leathery: One right beneath his left clavicle, one at the side of his sternum close to his heart, and one beneath his tenth rib.

“This is where I was shot at Amon Hen,” he murmured in surprise, pushing the hem of his shift aside to take a look.

“Indeed,” a low female voice said, and Boromir’s head shot up. Across the room – no, not a _room,_ he finally noticed, but a platform, suspended high above the ground, stretching between two mighty, grey tree trunks that supported it, connected to a flight of filigree stairs leading downwards – stood a woman of such exquisite beauty that he hardly dared to meet her eyes. Boromir’s head was spinning: He _had_ seen this before, not this room, maybe, but rooms like this, trees like this, and he had smelled the otherworldly scent carried by the wind through their leaves. This was Caras Galadhon, and the woman before him, the _elf_ before him, was Galadriel, the Lady of Light, Queen of Lothlórien. She was dressed in a flowing, unadorned white dress, her blond hair like woven gold over her shoulders, and she smiled at him, as brightly as the sun in the sky.

“Welcome back, Boromir, Steward of Gondor.”

Boromir shook his head. “How…? Am I beyond…is this another life?”  
Galadriel stepped towards him until she stood in the middle of the platform, right across from his bed. Her expression was soft, but unreadable, her long hands folded at her middle. “You are not beyond the veil. You have returned, not to the same life, but to the same world. As for how: That is your doing.”

“My doing?” Boromir felt his heart beat fast against his ribcage, a fact he noticed with absent-minded relief, because he _had_ a heartbeat, which meant he was still a man, not a ghost; but the elf’s words made no sense to him at all. “How is it my doing?”

Galadriel’s smile grew a little more mysterious. “These trees have been our homes for many thousands of years. And still, they existed long before we came. Their roots are connected and intertwined, linked by magic not even we fully understand. You swore an oath of allegiance to the King of Gondor, in this forest, and the trees were your witnesses, for your words were true. You have been bound to Elessar that night, and a bond like the one between you and him, forged in a place like this is strong. If it is not betrayed, it cannot be broken, not even by the wicked arrows of the Uruk-hai. Death could not have you, for the oath had you first, Son of Gondor. And now it is calling you to fulfil it.”

A gust of wind moved through the trees surrounding them, and for a moment Boromir was sure he could hear his name spoken in a thousand whispering tongues. A shiver ran over his skin and he swallowed harshly, averting his eyes from Galadriel’s glowing presence. “But I betrayed my oath, Lady of Lórien. I tried to take it. The one ring. I broke my promise to the Fellowship.”

She did not answer immediately. But all of a sudden, a pale, elegant finger lifted Boromir’s chin. Galadriel had moved in very close to the side of his bed and forced him to look her in the eye. “The King did not see your allegiance broken. If he had, the bond between you would have shattered. But you fought bravely, and you kept your honour _._ ”

Boromir closed his eyes, overwhelmed by a sudden inrush of emotion, for these had been Aragorn’s words to him.

Galadriel continued unperturbed: “The ring is very close to its destination now, but Minas Morgul is unleashed and Gondor in its hour of greatest need. The King is travelling to the White City from Rohan, but he will not wander the paths of the living, for he will claim the allegiance of those who have no honour and no name. I have seen the Fields of Pelennor covered in blood and destruction. I have seen Minas Tirith crumble and burn.”

Boromir still had his eyes pressed shut and tried to keep his hands from trembling. He knew Galadriel spoke the truth, _felt_ it in his very bones, and in his mind’s eye he saw the White City broken, the Tree of the King burning, dark legions marching in, and no man left alive to stop the enemy from taking all of Middle Earth.

A finger, soft and cool like silk, caressed his cheek and dragged him out of his thoughts. “There is strength in those who live. And there is strength in him who died and lives again. You will ride south, and you will set foot in your homeland, before the world is changed. Steward of Gondor.”

He opened his eyes again, and Galadriel’s face was still close, her smile still a mystery, her eyes endless pools of blue, speaking of wisdom beyond the years of any mortal life.

“You call me Steward, my Lady Galadriel.”

She nodded and let go of him, stepping back. “If you wish, you may look into my mirror, for you might see things that I have seen. And maybe some that I have not seen.”

“Your mirror?”

She stretched out her hand with elven elegance, turning to leave, and Boromir hesitated – but only for a moment, before his desire to seek the Queen’s guidance and wisdom got the better of him. The garment he had been dressed in turned out to be more of a robe than a shift: It fell right down to the floor, wafting around his ankles as he followed Galadriel down the flight of stairs. No other elf crossed their path as they walked through the forest in the early afternoon sun, throwing long, sweeping shadows through the leaves. Finally, they reached another flight of stairs, this one made not of wood but of stone built into the slope of a hill, at the bottom of which lay a rotund of grass, framed by the mighty roots of old trees. Boromir saw a cylindric stone in its middle, decorated with ancient carvings, on top of it a simple, flat silver basin. Galadriel walked over to a natural fountain by the roots of the oldest and tallest of the trees and took water from it with a silver jug. Boromir watched as she brought it over to the basin and poured it in; stepping back, she looked at him, expectantly, whereupon he started walking towards the basin, but stopped halfway, wariness slowing him down. “What will I see?”

Galadriel smiled, something wistful in her eyes. “Frodo asked me the same question, the night you swore your oath.”

“He was here?”

“He was. And he, too, wanted to look in the mirror. I shall tell you now what I told him then: Even the wisest cannot tell what you might see; for the mirror shows many things. Things that were, things that are. And some things that have not yet come to pass.”

That was vague at best, yet Boromir did not see another way for himself but to nod and accept it. He needed to know what Galadriel was willing to show him, so he crossed the rest of the distance between him and the basin with quick steps. The surface of the water was smooth and opaque, and Boromir bowed forward to see what it held. After a few moments of obscure, untelling darkness, a picture appeared in the water.

It was a mountain, nine figures moving towards its peak, and Boromir recognised the snowy heights of Caradhras, and the ring, beckoning him to take it. The scenery changed seamlessly into images of the forests of Lórien, Aragorn and him speaking, embracing, kissing, then lying naked beneath the tree by the water, moving into each other, two bodies intertwined in ecstasy. Before bashfulness could redden Boromir’s cheeks, the picture changed into something that cleared his face of all colour: Him and Frodo at Amon Hen, his own features distorted into something he hardly recognised on himself when he pushed the hobbit to the ground and grasped for the ring of power. The scene changed again to arrows sticking out of his chest and Aragorn kneeling over him. Boromir shuddered when he saw his own dead, sightless eyes staring up into the sky, saw Legolas standing in the distance as Aragorn pressed a final kiss to Boromir’s lips, saw his body put on a boat and given over to the mighty Falls of Rauros. The scenes started moving faster then, and he had to make an effort to follow, because he did not understand all of the images he was shown: The beacons of Gondor, lit up, like they had not been in decades. His brother Faramir cutting through hordes of orcs in a havocked Osgiliath, retreating. Pippin, _alive,_ in Gondorian armour. Boromir’s quick smile slipped from his lips at the next image: An army of orcs and Haradrim with Oliphants marching on Gondor. His father, Denethor, in flames, running, then plunging downwards from the Tower of Ecthelion, a living torch; Faramir on a pyre-

“No,” he murmured, but the pictures kept flooding in, heedless of Boromir’s dismay: Next he saw Minas Tirith, under fire. A white wizard, killing orcs by the dozen, blinding light streaming from his staff. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli at a door in the mountains, embedded with human skulls, entering. Then, Aragorn again, walking through the halls of Minas Tirith. A burst of euphoria sparked up in Boromir’s stomach, when he saw himself, kneeling before his King; who was then shown on horseback, Gondor’s soldiers by his side, at the Black Gate; a battlefield, innumerable orcs, a broken, blackened crown, Aragorn’s lifeless body, the blue drained from his eyes-

“NO!”

Boromir stepped away from the mirror and almost stumbled to the ground. There was cold sweat beading on his forehead while he struggled to regain his balance, and his breath went ragged in his throat as if he had just run ten miles. Smoke was rising from the surface of the mirror, and Galadriel looked at him from the other side with wakeful eyes.

“My father,” Boromir stammered. “I saw him burn. And my brother-”

Galadriel tilted her head. “I, too, have seen Denethor’s fall.”  
“That is why you call me _Steward_ ,” Boromir gave back, a cold shiver trickling down the nape of his neck.  
She gave no answer. “What else have you seen?”

“The White Wizard. _Saruman_. In Minas Tirith.”

A small smile spread on Galadriel’s lips. “Your eyes were deceiving you, Son of Gondor. It was the White Wizard, yes. But it was not Saruman you saw, for Saruman is dead and Isengard returned to Fangorn Forest.”

“Then, who was it?” Boromir demanded.

The Elven Queen’s smile caught a little mischievous edge. “You will see. In time.”

Boromir swallowed. “I saw Aragorn die in battle.”

Her smile disappeared from her lips. “You must ride now, Steward,” she said – and for an immortal her voice sounded dangerously hurried. “You must ride to the White City. You will be given appropriate clothing and a horse that runs swift and without rest in the night. Take the route through the Gate of Rohan, for you know it well. Come. There is no time to lose.”

She moved towards him and put a hand on his arm, holding him in place only for a moment. It was a strangely human gesture for the Elven Queen, and Boromir was surprised to see a smile on her face, despite the circumstances.

“I have only ever met one man of your like in my entire lifetime, only one who returned from beyond the veil to fulfil a sacred oath. _Pelgwaedh*._ That was how we called him. I think you are deserving of the name, Steward.”

Boromir did not think twice before he knelt down on the ground, and he felt Galadriel’s light hand on his head like a blessing when she spoke: “Boromir, _Pelgwaedh,_ Oathkeeper _._ May your name ring loud through the halls of Gondor, when you return to your King.”

**Author's Note:**

> * I have, sadly, not the faintest idea of the Elvish language, so this might be all wrong, but what I intended for it to mean is "The one to return for his oath", made up from the syllables "pel-", as in "to return", and "gwaedh", as in "oath (of allegiance)".


End file.
